Table of contents:
- Let's start with the why of this choice
- Here are some reflections on the service
- Other advantages
- Negative sides
Video: Shopping at Cortilia: what I like and what I don't
2024 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 12:26
A few months ago I had a baby girl (cheers!) And in the wake of oxytocin - the homely hormone - I signed up for Cortilia, which hands me a box of organic vegetables (and more, if desired) on the doormat once a day. week.
Premise: Cortilia is not the only company to offer a similar service.
In Milan there are also BioExpress and - with a little more complication because you have to go and collect your purchases - the Beehive that says yes.
But here I will only talk about Cortilia because it is the service I know: I have no personal interests and obviously I pay the expense out of my own pocket (when people on social media say well about something and then add "they didn't pay me to write it" I am always tempted to comment "unfortunately").
Let's start with the why of this choice
Someone accused me of doing it because I am one of those new mothers who thinks that, unlike the others, she will never give their children the junk. I was offended, I said that I am certainly not the type to contribute to these divisions between mothers, we all do the best we can: except that of course this is the case.
But there are also other reasons: I used to live opposite the Naturasì, and there were days when I happened to go shopping even twice a day, for lunch and then for dinner. Now we have moved a little further out of the center and under the house there is not the Naturasì but the ethnic butcher who also sells a mixture of frozen squid.
Not far away there is an Esselunga, and even if in Milan the collective appreciation for the Esselunga is the closest thing to the love of country, I don't go much: the one close to home is small (but the Esselunga they are like Starbucks coffees, the minimum size is already huge) and therefore does not offer the possibility of weighing fruit and vegetables by itself: it is all sold already wrapped, and every time I buy three carrots I think of that plastic island in the middle of the ocean and I get depressed.
Third after my maternal vainglory and ecology there is a more culinary reason: I would always buy the same vegetables of mine, because they are the ones I know how to cook; instead the cassette forces me to be imaginative: the composition is fixed, different every week. Although it is possible to remove and replace up to a maximum of three items, I try not to, but I always find myself full of cabbages, literally.
The small vegetable crate - the one I have - costs 19 euros, delivery is free in a very open range, otherwise you pay according to the popularity of the delivery time (a somewhat ruthless system).
Until now it was an introduction …
Here are some reflections on the service
I love it because: as our guru Michael Pollan says, “Eat food. Not too much. Above all vegetables ", in short, to compose a meal first you have to think about vegetables, and only later about cereals and proteins: a lot of Italian cuisine, on the other hand, tends to relegate vegetables to the role of" side dish ", while it should be the exact opposite.
Since the box is delivered to me every Monday, already at the beginning of the week I know which vegetables I will eat, and when I look for a recipe online or in books - especially those of Yotam Ottolenghi, in particular Plenty and Plenty More, dedicated to vegetarian cuisine - delivery from the ingredient and then I spread out. Works well.
In short, my cuisine is more varied, even if the mental resistance is powerful. Autumn example, I love pumpkin, I also put it in coffee (see Pumpkin Spice Latte) but I always stick to the Delica - Mantovana; Cortilia insists on Butternut Squash, and it took me a while to get familiar: instead I really like it, and on the third round I learned how to cook it.
Other advantages
Another advantage: finally "cooking with what's at home" is never punitive. With all this fresh vegetables, you just need to do a good pantry job to always be half an hour away from an excellent dinner.
Always have: dry pasta, rice, homemade and frozen vegetable broth in single portions (ah! Since I have been a mother I have sounded just like your mother), Parmigiano Reggiano, eggs, oil and butter, tomatoes, chickpeas and canned beans, onion and garlic. I also have a variety of herbs on the windowsill, but now I don't want to upset you.
Negative sides
Let's come to the downsides: the risk is the sorcerer's apprentice effect, the more vegetables you eat, the more there are. Finishing the entire tape in a week requires a little planning, it is a service suitable for the kind of person who could set aside a Sunday afternoon to prepare the line of the week without wanting to cry.
In this, for example, I was overwhelmed by the pre-Christmas sociality and therefore I ate very little at home, so yesterday I put the oven at 220 ° C, I cut carrots, leeks, cauliflower and cabbage into similar pieces and I cooked everything until it was scorched: We know that fried ciabatta is also good, but vegetables in a high-temperature oven deserve a little love too.
In short, my cassette and I are good together.
Although when I posted a photo of a mountain of vegetables on Instagram the other day, a friend who already has grown-up children called me and said only: "I understand eh, but in this phase you have to spend less time cooking vegetables and more time at the bar ".
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